Are you looking for the virsh command to delete a VM? We can help you with it.

Virsh is a command-line interface tool for managing VMs and hypervisors.

By using virsh commands we can undefine and delete VMs.

At Bobcares, we often receive a request to manage VMs via virsh, as a part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s see how our Support Engineers delete a VM using virsh.

VM management using virsh

As we’ve seen, virsh is a command-line VM management tool. We use it to manage guests and the hypervisor.

The virsh commands for guest management range from creating a VM to completely removing it.

So let’s see how to delete a VM using virsh.

How to delete VM using virsh?

Our customers often approach us to delete VM using virsh. Let’s see how our Support Engineers do this.

For deleting a VM we need to remove the XML configuration file. Additionally, we need to remove the storage files also.

So initially, we list the KVM guests using the command,

virsh list

This lists the name of the VM along with the status. Then to output the XML configuration of a domain, we use the command,

virsh dumpxml --domain guest_name

This outputs the VM configuration along with the storage files of the guest.

Next, we need to shut down the guest before deleting. So to shut down the VM we use the command,

virsh shutdown --domain guest_name

This command gracefully shutdown the VM.

But to force stop the VM we can use the command,

virsh destroy --domain guest_name

Finally, to delete the VM, we use the command,

virsh undefine --domain guest_name

Afterward, we manually remove the storage files from the specified location.

Alternatively, we can delete the VM and the storage files together. For this, our Support Engineers use the command,

Now this guest will become transient. Later we shut it down.

[Need assistance in fixing managing VM using virsh? – We can help you.]

Conclusion

So far we saw the virsh command to delete a VM. Using the virsh undefined command we can remove the attached configuration and with virsh destroy command we can delete the VM. Today, we also saw how our Support Engineers do this without fail.